1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical disc playback and display apparatus suitably applied to a so-called electronic book player.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, a so-called electronic book implemented by a small-sized optical disc such as a CD-ROM (Compact Disc Read Only Memory) for example in which a large quantity of character information or image information such as of a dictionary has been commercialized and considered to be a useful information reference tool along an easy-to-use, portable electronic book player for reproducing the information stored in the optical disc.
A conventional electronic book player has a rectangular housing, a keyboard disposed on the housing, a disc drive accommodated under the keyboard, and a rectangular liquid crystal display disposed on an underside of a lid hingedly engaged with the housing, for example.
When search data is entered by operating keys on the keyboard, character information or image information searched (or reproduced) based on the entered data is displayed on the liquid crystal display. The information in the display is scrolled up or down on a line or page basis by operating a scroll key or page key on the keyboard. Such a constitution is proposed by Copending U.S. application Ser. No. 692,319 filed Apr. 26, 1991 for example.
However, since the conventional electronic book player has the keyboard and the display in a stacked relation as mentioned above, it is difficult to make the player thinner in size. Moreover, the relatively compact-sized keyboard results in narrowly spaced character keys disposed on it, making it awkward for a user to enter search key data.